Gwynne Dyer: Benjamin Netanyahu pulls plug on latest round of Middle East peace talks
The headlines in the western media all said more or less the same thing when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the plug on the latest round of the “Middle East peace process” on Sunday. “Netanyahu urges [Palestinian leader Mahmoud] Abbas to continue peace talks as building freeze expires”, they said, or “Netanyahu appeals for calm as freeze on settlements runs out”. Et cetera.
The implicit message was that this moderate, reasonable man is still pleading for peace, even though circumstances beyond his control are making it harder to achieve. Let us hope that the Palestinians can find it in their hearts to be equally reasonable and peace-loving.
But it was Netanyahu who agreed to the building freeze 10 months ago because the Palestinians were understandably refusing to negotiate over the future of their land while Israelis continue to colonize it—or maybe just because the United States government, which agrees with the Palestinians about this, was twisting his arm very hard.
Netanyahu was well aware that Abbas could not continue to negotiate if work on expanding the Israeli settlements resumed, because Abbas has said so publicly and repeatedly. All last week, U.S. president Barack Obama begged Netanyahu not to wreck the talks by cancelling the freeze. Yet Netanyahu has chosen not to extend it. What does that tell us about his interest in a peace settlement?
Apologists for Israeli policy point out that the freeze always had that 10-month, self-cancelling proviso built into it, and that Netanyahu’s coalition government would almost certainly collapse if he extended it now. They are probably right about that, as the coalition includes extreme right-wing and settler-dominated parties that are dedicated to perpetual Israeli control over much or all of the occupied Palestinian territories.
But it was Netanyahu who set that 10-month deadline in the first place, allegedly to placate the more extreme elements in his coalition. So it is presumably they who are forcing his hand now. Poor “Bibi”, obliged to choose between peace and power. How hard it is to decide.
No, that’s not quite right either. If Netanyahu’s current coalition broke up, he could fairly easily create another in which parties that genuinely support the peace talks, like Labour, would take the place of the extremist parties that stormed out. So, to answer the question posed three paragraphs ago: no, the evidence suggests that Netanyahu is not interested in a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Once you say that, of course, you immediately have to qualify it. Netanyahu would be very interested in a peace deal in which the Palestinians just rolled over and agreed to his terms. He has never specified exactly what those terms are, but judging by what he has said in the past and by the company he keeps, they would amount to almost unconditional surrender.
Netanyahu wants permanent Israeli control of the land on which most of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank stand and Palestinian assent to the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem. There would be no return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in what is now Israel. And the Palestinians would have to create a government tough enough to enforce those terms on an outraged population but not strong enough to threaten Israel.
The Israeli prime minister knows that any Palestinian leader who agreed to such draconian peace terms could not survive—so, in practice, he is not very interested in peace talks with the Palestinians. He must look keen for peace, however, since that is what his American senior partners expect. That explains all the essentially meaningless diplomatic and PR activity of the past year.
The first time Netanyahu led the Israeli government, in 1996-99, he faced a similar problem. The Oslo peace accords had been signed quite recently, and prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who made that deal, had just been martyred by an extreme-right-wing Jewish assassin. There was a strong backlash against the far right in Israel and a serious danger that a land-for-peace deal was in the offing.
Netanyahu might not even have won the 1996 election if Palestinian extremists, hoping that he would destroy the Oslo deal, had not given him a boost by launching a vicious terrorist campaign against Israeli civilians. And it worked: having won the election, he successfully stalled for three years on fulfilling the Oslo terms. By 1999, despair had set in among Palestinian moderates and the “peace process” was effectively dead.
Netanyahu is in power again, and there is absolutely no reason to suppose that his agenda has changed since then.
Comments
15 Comments
glen p robbins
Sep 28, 2010 at 12:28pm
As Mr. Dyer alluded to, Mr. Netanyahu came to power in the mid 1990's as well. His relationship with the Clinton government was not good.
Secretary of State Mrs. Clinton is in the midst of these current negotiations, while Republicans hope to alter the balance of power before President Obama - during mid term elections.
Our polling company (sorry Matt) invested heavily of Mr. Netanyahu, because as one might infer from Mr. Dyer's expertise (via vignette) - what else might we have predicted from this?
Shepsil
Sep 28, 2010 at 6:23pm
I could not agree more with Mr. Dyer and it clearly doesnt' take an expert to figure out that BN is not interested in a peace deal with the Palestinians. BN is clearly only concerned for his own interests.
With Israel making nothing but enemies these days, it may only be a matter of time before the pendulum starts swinging the other way. When this happens, I will be relieved for the Palestinians and terribly saddened for those moderate Jews in the world who thought coexisting in Israel was a possibility at one time.
R U Kiddingme
Sep 28, 2010 at 6:51pm
It is all well and good to criticize the vendor for not selling very good sushi, but what if he is an ice-cream man? This article notes that Netanyahu has failed at being in the accommodation-with-Hamas business, but is that what his constituents really expect? It's a rather large supposition that has been ignored here. If Israel actually wanted a prime minister who would achieve the peacemaking process rudely foisted upon it (as Israel itself was foisted upon the Palestinian Arabs by Allies appalled by Nazi atrocities but not enough to offer haven to a bunch of, y'know, them) then they should have voted for one. It is almost like criticizing the wealthy penguin for not being an enthusiastic supporter of bike lanes.
Paolo
Sep 28, 2010 at 7:47pm
Oslo failed because of Yasir Arafat not upholding his part of the deal. Read your history Mr. Dyer and please refrain from rewriting it. This article is so biased it stinks.
Ghenghis Khan and his Brother Don
Sep 28, 2010 at 11:01pm
Paolo, and I suppose there was a palestinian conspiracy that organized the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin too. What is it you don't understand about UN Resolution 452 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_452) among others?
May you spend a year in the shoes of a refugee who has already spent decades being one.
Ghenghis Khan and his Brother Don
RealityCheck
Sep 29, 2010 at 6:50am
No Peace talks can work until groups like Hamas and Hezbollah recognize Israel's right to exist. Sadly, it's more profitable for them to spread fear and terrorize their own people than it is to govern in peace.
able seaman
Sep 29, 2010 at 10:07am
This article is not about Is/Pal, it's about GD. There is so much waffling in the middle, about what might be, laced with GD barbs against Israel, that GS editors should have sent it back to GD for a re-write. Or publish it in their fiction section.
"Abbas would be very interested in a peace deal in which the Israelis just rolled over and agreed to his terms. He has never specified exactly what those terms are, but judging by what he has said in the past and by the company he keeps, they would amount to almost unconditional surrender."
Why could Abbas not say or do anything during the 10 month freeze that would allow an extension? [Emulating GD...] What if it were a 15 month freeze just ending?
Hamas Charter [a tiny extract] never referred to by GD.
"Then the trees and rocks will call out: 'Oh muslim! There is a jew hidden behind me; come and KILL him!'"
That refers first to ~5 million Israeli jews. They would be followed by the ~10 million jews in the diaspora.
judith bell
Sep 29, 2010 at 12:47pm
I don't get it. They had 10 months of a freeze to negotiate and Abbas would not come to the table. What was he doing for 10 months?
Also, every Jew was cleared out of every country in the Middle East after Israel was established.. And out of North African countries too. Why does the world need the new Palestine to have no Jews? The Jewish state is 20% Arab. Why does a new Palestine have to be ethnically pure. When you add that Dyer thinks this demand should be acceded to along with the resettlement of 4.5 million Arabs in Israel proper, which only has 5 million Jews, (500,000 more if you take in the ones from the occupied territories) then there is no home for the Jews. I guess this is because, according to Dyer, it is wrong to have a Jewish state.
Dyer has never written, to my knowledge, that the Jews from Arab lands have to be compensated or that it makes sense they were resettled in Israel ( 61% of Israeli Jews derive their heritage in whole or in part from Jews from the Levant) He also has no trouble with population transfer if the population is Jews. Or with ethnic purity in other states, especially Arab ones. Where are his comments on the fact it is illegal to sell land to Jews in Jordan?
When Dyer is says Israel is not interested in peace unless it involves the end of a Jewish state he is right. However, when you compare that to how, according to Dyer, Jews are to be treated, especially in light of 2000 years of history,you see how right Israel is.
Without a Jewish state, Jews would be treated the way they were in the Arab and Christian world for 2,000 years. The Holocaust was not original. Jews were victims of pogroms in the Arab and Christian world always.
The Arabs kicking out Jewish populations that had lived in their lands for thousands of years wasn't original either. Jews have been kicked out of everywhere they lived ALWAYS. There have been no exceptions. They moved from the Levant to Spain to Germany to Poland. Everywhere, it was the same story.
Look at what is happening with the Roma now. Look at the persecution of minorities in Arab lands. That would definitely be the Jews without an Israel.
Dyer knows it. This column ignores a lot of truths.
Matt T
Sep 29, 2010 at 2:44pm
I dont trust the decision making process of any person or nation that uses as their prima facia claim that "God promised it to us".
A Canuck
Sep 30, 2010 at 3:56am
The whole point is whether Israel has a right to settle in the occupied territories. It does not have such a right. Israel is saying: "If you do not let us continue to act illegally, we will continue to act illegally. Why are you being unreasonable?" The settlements are not only illegal but they are counter productive to the longterm interests of Israel.